What are some facts about the Hoover Dam?

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The Hoover Dam, often considered to be one of the great architectural wonders of the world, cost $49 million to build in 1935. It is 726 feet high and 1,200 feet wide. The thickest part of the dam, at the base, is 660 feet thick, which is almost the equivalent of two football fields.

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The Hoover Dam has improved local tourism. Its original purpose was to generate electricity, and it also controls floods and helps with irrigation. The Hoover Dam provides power for more than 1 million people. It creates electricity as 300,000 gallons of water run into the generators every second.

Lake Mead, the largest man-made lake in the United States, is the result of Hoover Dam. The lake is 550 miles long and 590 feet deep. There is enough water in Lake Mead to flood the entire state of New York. This lake provides water to much of Southern California, including Anaheim and San Diego, as well as Las Vegas.

The dam's construction used 8.5 million pounds of dynamite and 4.5 million cubic yards of concrete. The amount of copper in the buses that carry the electricity within the dam would be the equivalent of $2 million in copper pennies. There was so much concrete used that if it had been made into a sidewalk, it would circle the globe at the equator.